This morning was fun when I got to my car and found it covered in ice. "No problem", thinks I, "I shall simply scrape the ice from the windows using my handy ice scraper". Then I remembered that my Mum in her infinite wisdom had left my handy ice-scraper in my last car when she scrapped it. AHH.

In the end I had to start the engine to try and get some hot air inside the car (which didn't work) put the windscreen wipers on full, rear-heated window and hope. When I pulled away my driver-side window was still opaque, which made the many left-turns interesting - as I couldn't see more than about a metre out of that window. If the window-winder worked I could have wound it down - but then I'd have never been able to wind it back up again *sigh* Off to Halfords with me after work then.

Last night I received a missed call and 2 text messages from Sophie who's back from France for her ex-flatmates birthday. I've arranged to meet up with her today but, apparently, it depends on when she gets up today...? Ok, whatever. It's nice that she's back, but she could have given me a little warning rather than just appearing in Aber like that.

I got a questionnaire from the DSA this morning because I took my test on a particular week, so they want to know all about me. Honestly, I have to fill out less paperwork to get a loan! It is voluntary but I'm being a good egg and filling it out for them anyway: Mainly just so that I can gloat when it asks how many attempts it took to pass my test.

My flat is a shocking state, I really need to tidy it up when I get back tonight. It's disgusting.

Well after only a day of messing about with Gaim I am now able to get onto MSN from home. Now I can talk to all my mates and stay at the cutting edge of the Aberystwyth CompSci social life...pfffft.

I also found that the 56k connection to the Internet from my machine doesn't seem to go down at any point - despite the fact that the number I dial is supposed to be for evenings and weekends only. Hmmm. I've now been connected continuously for over a day.

I am so tired. Had a splendid weekend in Newbury. Didn't do too badly going to Newbury, although I added an extra hour onto the journey by driving down the A4159 onto the A487... Half an hour later I realised my mistake. Otherwise the journey was fairly uneventful. My first ever taste of motorway driving went well, I accidently pulled out in front of someone to much angry beeping within the first 30 seconds, but then everything was fine.

On Saturday we did the valentines day thing, and waited for Liz's new phone from Orange to arrive. When it didn't she rang Initial [C|Sh]ity Link. I was surprised how calm she stayed - I'd have had a right go. From the other side of the room I could hear the person on the other end of the phone being a right bitch, and then they hung up on her! Couldn't believe it. This review says it all.

After all the fuss with the phone we decided to make the most of the remaining part of the day and so we went to Avebury to see the standing stones and have a bit of a walk. We also saw Silsbury Hill, which was odd. Sadly it's closed to the public, which is a shame because it looks great to walk up.

On Sunday we went shopping and then we went to Donnington Castle. It was very nice, but not a lot of it. We had been expecting it to be a lot bigger with a lot more to see, but still it was nice.

Then I drove home and got extremely angry in Hereford where the one-way system seems designed to make you go round in circles forever. Whoever came up with that stupid system needs to be made to try and drive through it without getting lost. I gave up in the end and took one of the 50 exits that went to Abergavenny - I know how to get home from there so it seemed like the best option.

Got home at 1am this morning after 7 and a half hours on the road... And that's why I'm knackered.

I'm off to Newbury in an hour. Should be a nice relaxing weekend with Liz. Just going to start looking over the route to make sure I don't go via Matlock this time.

Downloaded a version of Repton this morning for great nostalgia. Downloaded PacMan PC too and was playing it. Great fun until a colleague walked in while I was shouting "I'm going to eat you little ghostie". Oops.

My god it's Thursday, tomorrow I will begin the drive to Newbury. That should be a nice long run for the car. The problems with starting it seem to be resolving themselves - I think it's a mixture of the engine having gunk (technical term) in it from sitting around doing nothing for a few months, and the slightly knackered battery not being able to turn the engine over fast enough. I've found that just the slightest pressure on the accelerator as I turn it over seems to be enough to kick it into life. Too much and it splutters out. None at all and it struggles to get up to speed.

Life seems to be like a game of Snakes and Ladders sometimes. Seems every time I roll a double six I end up on a snake. I'm still wallowing somewhere down at the bottom of the board while most people seem to be happily climbing the ladders towards the top.

If money problems carry on like this I'm going to be in the shit in a big way.

This week seems to be rushing by at an astonishing rate. It's already Wednesday. Five minutes ago I was getting out of bed on Monday.

Just back from a meeting where I explained that the current navigation on the new DIS website is in dire need of being changed, offered some ideas and got feedback. Then listened as they tore my design apart. The design that I had bodged together under instruction from them. Explained that a full rewrite was necessary and listened to the shocked angry arguments. A full rewrite is necessary because what is there is a crap bodge just so that we have something to show. Still never mind. Now to start rewriting the whole thing in Javascript (*groan*)

Went to John's house for lunch as he had to go and let his dog out of the house for a walk, so he invited us for lunch and a cup of tea. Lives in a really gorgeous bit of countryside.

Now to email the Tourist Information people about campsites in the SAAAHF* of England.

* SAAAHF, adv., prep., n. and a. (as in "South")

"If you suck on a tit the movie gets an R rating. If you hack the tit off with an axe it will be PG." --Jack Nicholson.

Heheheh, really made me laugh that did. I can really identify with it, I think the film classifications are atrocious.

For some reason I'm really tired today. God only knows why. Just back from Badminton. Lost every game I played :( All well.

Drove to work this morning as I am going to go to Safeways later. The car struggled to reach 30 on Penglais hill in 3rd gear and I ended up dropping to second and revving the hell out of the engine to reach 30, then jamming it back into 3rd and holding it there. Poor little thing has only got a 1.4 litre (Diesel) engine.

Followed one of my colleagues up the hill and so flashed my lights at her. Thought I'd dazzled her, so when I got in I apologised. Turned out that she hadn't even noticed - shows how much attention she was paying to the road. She thought the car that had followed her all the way from town was a red one. Errr, no. Getting to Safeway is going to be interesting, what with Primrose Hill being closed. I'm going to have to go out of town, round and back again.

Anyway, the weekend in full: Saturday morning the insurance cover note arrived at 7:30am after I paid nearly £4 for it to be delivered next day. I had the car taxed by lunch, and decided I would take the opportunity of my parents being out to move it off the drive onto the road. They came back while I was moving it, and my Mum came running out of the car towards me yelling something incoherent. I went to open the door and this seemed to make her even more frantic. So I sat tight and waited.

"Don't open the window" She yelled

"Why?"

"Just don't" *sigh*

So I carried on moving the car, and there was a sickening juddering and groaning from the back right wheel.

"What was THAT?" I yelled at my Mum who could see.

"I don't think the wheel is turning" She called back "Carry on". This didn't seem like the best plan to me, but I carried on anyway. "No, your back wheel isn't turning." Great.

The rest of the morning was then spent removing the wheel and trying to get the handbrake to disengage correctly. Problem was that the Peugeot 106 wheel hubs aren't designed to be removed unless you've got a replacement - you have to destroy them to take them off. So we had to just spin it and hope it disengaged itself. We loosened it a bit, and then put the wheel back on. We also took the opportunity to top the oil levels up, the windscreen washer fluid and the engine coolant. We worked out how to get access to the spare wheel should we need it, and pumped it up, and we even found the jack (which is inexplicably placed in the middle of the spare wheel).

With the car all ready to go I took it out for a short spin. It seemed to just want to GO on the country roads, but struggled a little on the "A" roads.

On Sunday I pumped all the tyres up to the correct pressures (somehow that got overlooked on Saturday) and I set off around lunch time. It seemed most strange when I finally arrived in Aberystwyth; I've always driven around in big circles until now. It somehow didn't feel real to go from Notts to Aber.

Only problem with the weekend was that I've still not informed my parents that I'm a Vegetarian, and I didn't want to put them out. So I just ate meat this weekend. :( I didn't enjoy it, in fact when I thought about it I felt ill, so I had to make a concious effort not to think about it. Strange really that I've not missed meat in any way shape or form since I became Vegatarian - but I suppose there's time yet.

Anyway, I seem to have rambleBlogged© again so I will now shut up and get on with some work.

Look at the date - it's Sunday! Not very exciting to most I suppose, but this is a revolution for me. Never before have I had an Internet connection on my own machine, and this is my first ever blog from my first ever 56k dialup. Well I thought it was cool anyway.

I've just returned from the worst journey I have ever undertaken in a car. The parents didn't want me to drive home on any motorways so I had to plan a route that was entirely on "A" roads. The idea was simple:

Notts -> Derby

Derby -> Stoke

Stoke -> Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury -> Welshpool

Welshpool -> Machynlleth

Machynlleth -> Aberystwyth

Simple huh? I thought so. Then I got on the various planned "A" roads and found they were speed restricted, some as low as 30 Mph. Wasn't even as if I could speed, they were clearly very heavily monitored roads with speed cameras after every bend and hill. How they can claim they aren't designed to "catch people out" I do not know. I left about 11:00 or so and got in at 7:30 or so. It'd have been quicker catching the train. My legs are killing me. Anyway, I'm going to eat some food then go to bed.

Initial City Link are going to get the world's arsiest complaints letter after the amount of trouble they've caused me. They've now gone and delivered my parcel to the Computer Science building. This is the last time I buy anything from Ebuyer, quite simply because Initial City Link are so crap.